The emphasis in connectivity technology for computing devices has evolved from coupling a few isolated devices through serial ports or primitive local area networks (LANs) to coupling worldwide internets that connect millions of users and incorporate server banks storing vast amounts of knowledge and routine data. As the worldwide web of networks expands, the devices that perform the networking become proportionately more powerful and sophisticated. As a result, administration of the networks and management of the devices that perform the networking grow correspondingly complex.
Analogous to an early phase of the personal computer revolution, during which management was often cumbersome due to incompatible hardware elements requiring separate management and troubleshooting, the management of evolving networks and aggregates of separate systems is likewise often cumbersome because many of the switches, bridges, routers, repeaters, hubs, and software protocols that perform the networking have evolved separately and require separate management and troubleshooting. The numerous devices, each requiring separate administration, present a problem for remote management.
Although there are countless devices in need of unified management, there are some networking devices that are almost always used in any sizeable network. One widely-used component for network connectivity is the network data switch, such as an Ethernet switch adhering to the Ethernet standard topology, defined within the 802.3 standards committee of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE). Ethernet allows all hosts on a network to share the same bandwidth of a link, and has become popular because it is easy to add new technologies such as Fast-Ethernet and Gigabit-Ethernet to existing network infrastructures. Over the last decade, the Ethernet standard has evolved from a 10 Mb/sec standard to a 100 Mb/sec standard to a 1 Gb/sec standard and, more recently, a 10 Gb/sec Ethernet standard, IEEE 802.3ae entitled Local and Metropolitan Area Networks—Part 3: Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) Access Method and Physical Layer Specifications—Media Access Control Parameters, Physical Layers and Management Parameters for 10 Gb/sec Operation has been proposed.
In addition to creating a physical LAN by connecting host devices, an Ethernet switch may also be used to create virtual LANs (VLANs), which are one or more logical networks within a physical network. A VLAN may logically connect two or more components in the physical network to the logical exclusion of the other components. VLANs are often employed to create subgroup networks within a larger physical network without having to add or alter hardware. Since a VLAN by essence logically includes participants in the defined logical network, it provides a convenient way to ensure a communicative coupling between selected participants, although the VLAN does not provide perfect network security to those participants included.
Another widely-used component for network connectivity is a security/encryption engine. As the networking revolution has unfolded and connectivity has become more sophisticated, network security has become one of the primary connectivity and systems management concerns. Encryption systems such as secured sockets layer protocol (SSL) have been developed to protect the privacy of data being exchanged between a website and an individual node on a network, without adding appreciable latency. Although popular, SSL is just one possible scheme for protecting the privacy of data sent over public networks.
Load balancers are another class of common networking devices that are typically present in an aggregate of systems. Networks connected by one or more Ethernet switches may be composed of individual users, but may also include server farms requiring a distributed load between individual servers. A server, such as a file server, applications server, web server, or e-mail server, is typically a computer that provides services to another (client) computer. When multiple servers are connected to the same network switch, it may become necessary to distribute processing and data communications activity evenly across the servers of the network so that no single device becomes overwhelmed. Data load balancing is particularly important in networks when it is predicted that the data load will likely exceed the capacity of a single server. However, each of the servers must be capable of performing the same task. If one server becomes overwhelmed, requests are forwarded to another server with more capacity.
As examples of ubiquitous networking devices in need of unified management, the above-described network switches, security encrypters, and server load balancers arose separately as distinct devices to answer specific networking needs. The separate evolution has resulted in an undesirable disparity in the maintenance, troubleshooting, and management of these and many other networking devices. Further, during times of heavy loading, data congestion can often disrupt or freeze the disparate management data channels to the devices, i.e., the congestion often impairs network management at the time management is needed most.